They Dragged Them through the Streets
A Novel
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A veteran of the US war in Iraq commits suicide, and his brother joins with four friends in search of ways to protest the war. Together they undertake a series of small-scale bombings until an explosion claims one of their own. This grave and elegant novel is an elegy for these two deaths and the war itself.
They Dragged Them Through the Streets is a bold meditation on idealism, anger, and the American home front’s experience of today’s wars. This is an innovative work in the great tradition of war literature and a singular chronicle of one generation’s conflicts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Plum's debut novel follows four friends Ford, Vivienne, Sara, and "A" (whose full name is never revealed) in the events leading up to and during the aftermath of two deaths. One is that of Ford's older brother Jay, an army veteran who committed suicide upon returning home from the Iraq War; the other is of mutual friend Zechariah, who died in a house explosion. Told in chapter vignettes titled by the first initial of the shuffling narrators, each member of the group struggles with personal strife while maintaining their protest of the war. Weaved among suggestions of terrorism against recruitment centers, schools, and hospitals all symbolic statements against the war Ford battles alcoholism as he tries to comprehend his brother's reasons for taking his own life, Vivienne struggles to maintain sanity after Zechariah's death, and Sara reconsiders her place in life while working at a shelter for veterans. With so many fragmentary chapters and indistinguishable character voices, the book becomes a draining read. The one personality that stands out is Jay, and Plum's rich descriptions, across an all-too-brief two pages, make it hard to believe she couldn't do the same with the others.
